Forgetting the fact that there's an inverted cross on the album's cover and the fact that the CD case is made of black pleather, something about listening to MellowHype's new album feels taboo. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Numbers feels like an achievement; with this album, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All and its stable of outlaw emcees and producers have proven they're capable of sustaining themselves beyond the flourish of hipster hype which accompanied them when they landed like a continent-sized blip on the radar in 2011. Over a set of four albums, OFWGKTA made their point – they could break through – so now with Numbers and its black leather case, MellowHype is confidently and defiantly letting its freak flag fly.
Right from the top of “Grill,” Numbers oozes a sort of West Coast confidence similar to the G-Funk that Dr. Dre flaunted in his heyday. Remember the days when Dre spat “You don't like me? Blow me”? It's like that up in here. Droning synth and deep (really deep) bass are the order of the day, but it's cut with a much more methodical flow (read: Hodgy Beats isn't necessarily trying to cram as many syllables as possible into a stanza) which makes for a much more urbane and almost bookish experience. It's hypnotizing and cold as hell, but not at all like anything that ever came out of South Central before. Here, lines like “Wolf Gang clan sold out when they set a date/ Klux Klan burn the stage down let it marinate/ Correlate, circulate, percolate/ I work on fate, it hurts to hate/ For me there's no surrogate” don't come out with rhetorical guns blazing, Hodgy comes out standing tall and proud flanked by Left Brain standing tall and proud with those lines and stares down all of those who would come up to challenge or even just listen.
That sort of chilly, mesmerizing rhythm holds up throughout Numbers but is at its most poignant in songs like “Astro” (where talk of Hodgy and Left Brain rockin' out with their cocks out at the Grammys is the image set), “NFWGJDSH” (where the beat is beefed up by the sound of the action on a semi-automatic pistol), “Snare” (which reclaims gangland for a new generation of emcee) and “666” (which attempts to cross that notorious number of the beast with all of the evils in hip hop success) because, on those songs, the duo cuts a totally new image – apart from the character forms which have driven hip hop for so long (the gun-toting gang banger, the Benjamin-fanning mogul, the dark street poet and the party boy); the sound includes hints of all of those archetypes, but there is more to what listeners will hear than just that too. Everything about this record is more open in style and, presumably, the mixes have been left open because both the emcee and producer want to be able to grow and change on future albums – not be locked into a paradigm. That makes good sense, but the added bonus and upside to that working pattern is that the results are both very engaging and very accessible; listeners will find it very easy to inhabit the different turns that MellowHype makes throughout Numbers, and will excitedly gather around every banner the group rolls out on this record but, because the record is so open, it'll be interesting to see what the duo does next too.
Artist:
www.oddfuture.com/
www.myspace.com/mellxwhype
www.facebook.com/WTFisMELLOWHYPE
www.twitter.com/WTFisMELLOWHYPE
Album:
Numbers is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
